Fig. 4.

Overexpression of Kal7 in the MSNs of NAc increases spine density. NAc slices were prepared from postnatal day 8 rats and were biolistically transfected with a vector encoding GFP alone (A) or cotransfected with a vector encoding GFP plus a vector encoding Myc-tagged Kal7 (B) using a gene gun (GFP/Kal7 = 1:2 ratio). Neurons were fixed 48 h after transfection, doubly stained with polyclonal GFP (C) and monoclonal myc (D) antibodies, and visualized with Cy3-conjugated donkey anti-mouse IgG and fluorescein isothiocyanate-conjugated donkey anti-rabbit IgG. Spine density was analyzed using Neurolucida as described previously (Ma et al., 2003) (F). **, quantification of spine density, p < 0.01, Student t test, n = 9. Scale bars, 10 μm.